San Jose’s Cinco de Mayo parade and festival drew tens of thousands of revelers downtown, but police reported relatively few problems.

Unlike in years past when the holiday – like others that draw large crowds to the city’s center – has been marred by violence and vandalism, police said this weekend was generally smooth sailing.

By just after midnight this morning, Jermaine Thomas reported that only 20 felony arrests were made Sunday. Police also made 45 misdemeanor arrests and wrote nearly 200 tickets.

To head off trouble, nearly 200 officers flooded the downtown area over the weekend. Officers worked the streets on foot, on horseback, on bikes and from their patrol cars. But officials never needed to call an unlawful assembly, a move that let’s them arrest troublemakers in large crowds that refuse to disperse, or to set up pedestrian diversions over the largely calm holiday weekend.